


Birthday Ghosts Hunters Extraordinaire

by Weevilo707



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Ghost Hunters, Haunted Houses, Humanstuck, If You Squint - Freeform, Pranks, davekat - Freeform, just a bunch of kids trying to be, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 07:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: John drags his two best friends to help him find evidence of a ghost in an old abandoned house in their neighborhood.John is excited, Karkat is terrified, and Dave is sure that this whole thing is extremely stupid.





	Birthday Ghosts Hunters Extraordinaire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PocketFloral (spacewombat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacewombat/gifts).



You’re pretty sure this whole thing is ridiculous, but hey you’re not gonna be the one to ruin their fun. Nah, you’ll just watch and have your own enjoyment when they crash and burn. 

“Okay, I’m gonna put it out there one last time. This is a horrible fucking idea and if we end up murdered or in jail it’s all your fault,” Karkat complains for what is definitely not going to be the last time. He’s been nonstop in vocalizing his annoyance the entire time you’ve been heading out and you don’t see that ending anytime soon. 

“Karkat we’re not going to go to jail. The house is completely abandoned and I don’t think ghosts can call the police,” John argues with him, not seeming the least bit bothered by his constant complaints yet. You guess it’s not anything unusual for Karkat to try and be the voice of reason. It never works, but still, valiant effort. 

“That doesn’t get rid of the possibility of murder. Even if fucking with ghosts wasn’t an instrumentally stupid idea that doesn’t mean some random crazed asshole couldn’t be living in that house. I know you’ve watched horror movies John this is how it _always_ starts,” Karkat rambles. 

“If this is a horror movie which one of us is the hot girl?” you ask, Karkat rolling his eyes at you. 

“Vriska’s grounded for breaking out of her house again last week so she couldn’t come,” John tells you, both you and Karkat making looks of disgust at that. 

“Okay we’re gonna ignore the fact that Vriska’s the first person to come to your head at the phrase ‘hot girl,’ for all of ours sakes,” Karkat says, and you nod in agreement. John huffs at the two of you but hey he’s the one who went there, you and Karkat are doing him a favor by letting that go. 

“Whatever, the point is we’re not gonna get arrested, we’re not gonna get murdered, we’re totally gonna catch a ghost, and Dave is absolutely the hot girl in this scenario,” John tells you both as you start to slow your bikes, the decrepit old house coming into view. 

“I can work with that,” you say with a shrug. John stops when you reach the front of the house, jumping off his bike and rolling it alongside him as he walks into the yard. You pull your phone out as you follow, getting the camera up to start recording the back of John’s head as he walks towards the house. 

“Alright now, commencing operation get John kidnapped by ghosts and/or a homeless dude squatting in an abandoned house for his birthday like he’s always wanted. So far so good, we got a backpack of shitty recording equipment we stole from Bro and Karkat hasn’t vomited even once yet,” you ramble into the camera as you all walk along the side of the house. It looks pretty run down, the windows all boarded up from the inside and the paint dried and peeling. 

“I’m not going to fucking vomit asswipe,” Karkat snaps at you, letting his bike drop on top of yours instead of leaning it against the side of the house like a rational person. 

“As long as it’s not on me I couldn’t give a shit if you do or not. Hey what would happen if you threw up on a ghost? Would it go through them or would it cover and outline their form like some sort of horrid vomit specter?” you ask, Karkat rolling his eyes at you instead of answering. 

“Ew, Dave stop being gross,” John says as you all head to the back of the house. It’s starting to get dark, John’s had this whole thing planned out for weeks now. As far as any of your parents know you’re all staying at your house for John’s 14th birthday. If anyone does end up calling bro he’ll just say you’re there without actually checking. 

John swore up and down that this house was haunted, so you all were going to stay the night and try to find some evidence. You sincerely doubted you’d actually find any. Karkat was way too certain that you would and wasn’t happy about the idea. 

“Okay, who here knows how to pick a lock?” John asks, standing in front of the back door. The thing looks like it’s about to fall off of its hinges at the slightest movement in your opinion. Also in the opinion of objective facts. You know that because you came here yesterday and it did fall off the hinges. You only kinda managed to put it back into place when you left. 

“Uh, fucking no one. How about instead of breaking and entering we go home and you all don’t get murdered like the idiotic white people you are,” Karkat continues to complain. 

“Karkat stop being lame, no one’s getting murdered. Now help me figure out how to open the door,” John says. Instead of saying anything you push past him and give the handle a light push, the entire thing slowly falling to the floor. Stepping to the side you hold your arms out towards it like you’re showing off a goddamn magic trick. 

“That works,” John says, still chipper as fuck. Pulling his bookbag around, he rummages inside before pulling out a tape recorder. You had to dig fucking deep to find one and some actual blank tapes to use in it, but John _insisted_ he had to use a tape recorder as well as regular phone recordings. “Alright, let’s get going!” he says, all giddy as he starts inside. 

You let Karkat go in front of you, following behind and turning your phone flashlight on for some light. It’s pretty dark inside with the windows boarded up, and the little bit still leaking in from the sunset will be gone soon anyway. 

“Okay, where should we start first? Upstairs? The basement? Oh, we should save the basement for last that’s gonna be where the good stuff is,” John start, barely containing his excitement. 

“Let’s stay _away_ from the basement for now,” Karkat says, and you can’t get on his case too much for that one. Regular basements are fucking creepy, you wouldn’t be against staying out of this one. You didn’t even put any pranks down there because you figured a dark hole full of spiders was good enough as is. 

“Your call man,” you tell John with a shrug. It’s kind of hilarious how serious he looks as he thinks it over. 

“Let’s start upstairs and work our way down,” he decides after a bit, and that seems fair enough to you. You let the two of them go on ahead, mostly so that you can continue taping them. Not the best quality with the flashlight still going and shit, but it works. 

**HONK**

“Fucking shit fuck!” 

You reach out automatically to keep Karkat from falling down the stairs when he freaks the hell out, just managing not to drop your phone in the process. You’re surprised enough by the honk that you don’t laugh at the reaction, but it’s still pretty fucking hilarious. It takes a couple seconds for Karkat to recover from the apparent heart attack he had, but once he does he shoves away from you all pissed and kicks the bike horn down the rest of the stairs. Several soft little honks sound out when it hits each step. 

This was _such_ a good idea. You’re a genius. 

“Why the ever loving _fuck_ is there a goddamn bike horn doing on the stairs?” Karkat snaps. You shrug all innocently at him like you don’t got the slightest clue. 

“The person who died here was an exercise enthusiast?” John guesses, not seeming too terribly interested. “Now come on, and Karkat try not to be so loud,” he adds.

“Or what? You think I’ll scare away the ghosts or something? If only we could be so lucky,” Karkat grumbles as he follows along, arms crossed and glaring at everything. 

“Maybe, at the very least you might disturb them,” John says, waiting for the two of you at the top of the stairs. 

“Hey man look at the bright side, now they definitely know we’re here,” you say, making the last part in a ridiculous spooky voice because honestly this is pretty stupid. You’ll go along for John to have fun but you really don’t believe in any goddamn ghosts. 

“You know that’s a good point. Let’s start in this room first,” John said, going into what looks like a bedroom. You head in before Karkat, making sure to step over the little bike horn you left in the doorway. 

Karkat however does not see it, and this time you’re expecting it and can’t help but snicker when the loud honk sounds and Karkat fucking _squeals._

“Goddamn it _why?!”_ he yells, kicking the horn across the room. You thought you might be able to get someone to step on one of them and they’d look around to avoid the rest, but this is working better than you expected.

“Seriously dude? Again?” you ask, trying not to let the amusement show in your voice. Thankfully Karkat seems a little too angry and freaked out to notice. 

“It’s not my fucking fault you asshat! Who the hell leaves bike horns all over the place?” he snaps at you. 

“Guys stop arguing and be quiet I’m trying to see if we can record any sounds,” John chastises the two of you. Karkat huffs and goes to sulk against a wall and you shrug and nod to let him do his thing. “Okay, testing. Spirits, are any of you here?” he asked the open air, holding the recorder out in front of him, waiting for some sort of answer. There’s nothing for a few long, boring seconds and then you whisper in as deep a voice as you can manage. 

“Dicks,” you wish you knew how to throw your voice, but it works enough for a flash of excitement to cross John’s face before he processes the sound. You try and look casual when he turns all irritated to you but it doesn’t throw him off any. 

“Dave! Cut it out, we’re trying to be serious here,” John whines at you. He starts walking around a bit, still holding out the tape recorder.

“I don’t got any idea what you’re talking about bro,” you tell him. He just rolls his eyes and continues to ignore you, talking to ghosts that aren’t there instead. You all spend a few more minutes in the room, Karkat being uncharacteristically quiet the entire time. After a bit John decides it’s time to move onto the next room and you continue to let him take the lead. 

It’s another bedroom from what you can tell, and when John goes to open the closet door he jolts in surprise when the thing falls away into the closet. “Whoa, this place is really run down,” he says, looking around inside. 

“Yeah, sure does seem that way,” you say casually, glad that Karkat wasn’t the one to walk into literally every single one of your pranks, even if that was one of the more minor ones. Right as you think that another fucking horn goes off and Karkat looks ready to bite the goddamn thing in half. 

“Where do you keep _finding_ those things?” John asks, sounding more confused than annoyed or scared. 

“Maybe you should watch where you’re going dude,” you tell Karkat, who picks up the bike horn and throws it at you. It’s pretty easy for you to dodge the thing and it gives a pathetic little honk when it hits the wall behind you. You can’t tell if he realizes you’re the one who’s placed them everywhere but you don’t think so, at least not yet. 

_“You_ should watch where you’re going,” he growls, pretty substandard from the normal insults Karkat throws at you. You guess he is a bit freaked underneath all the anger. 

You all spend the next hour or so exploring the upstairs and letting John try different types of weird ghost testing like he’s trying to be some sorta ghost whisperer. You mumble under your breath whenever he takes too long recording empty air and you get bored. Most of the time he realizes it’s you, but there’s been a couple where he doesn’t hear it until he plays back the tape. It’s pretty fucking hilarious to see him excitedly try and figure out what’s being said only to realize it’s the word ‘boner.’ 

Eventually John feels like you’ve exhausted the upstairs, which is good because it was only those two rooms, a bathroom and a hall closet. You all mostly stayed out of the bathroom too because there was a suspicious amount of mold growing on the ceiling. You all figured that if there was a ghost it wouldn’t choose to spend most of its time in there. 

“This would be so much easier if Karkat let us bring an Ouija board,” John complained as you headed back down the stairs. 

“Oh _fuck_ that shit. Calling on ghosts is bad enough, you bring that shit out here and I’m gone. Do you want demons, because that is literally how you get fucking demons,” Karkat rants, speaking up for the first time in a while. 

“Relax, we’re not going to use one. Like I said I didn’t even bring it,” John assures him. It doesn’t seem to relax Karkat too much from what you can tell, but you’re sure he’ll be fine. You explore the living room a bit more thoroughly this time. You’ve switched from using your phone flashlights to using the actual ones you brought, since it’s pretty damn dark now and you don’t want to drain all your battery. 

You didn’t prank the living room, you figured you’d let them fall into a false sense of security. You guess starting upstairs didn’t let that plan happen but you think that things have been going pretty well regardless. At the very least, you haven’t been too bored.

John keeps switching between taping empty air and taking pictures all over the room and speaking out loud to try and get the ghost's attention. Karkat starts pacing and another horn goes off and you’re confused because you didn’t even set one up in the living room. Then you remember the one he kicked off the stairs and okay you gotta laugh at that. 

“Okay man you brought that one on yourself,” you tell Karkat, and you stop laughing because he’s starting to look a little ragged. Like, it’s hard to tell in the low light but he doesn’t look all that good. John shushes you both again and takes a few more pictures of empty corners. Even without the horns and shit going off the house creaks and groans when you all walk and you can admit that on a base level it’s definitely got that whole creepy haunted house vibe. 

A little while later you move to the kitchen and John switches back to recording. The floor is all wonky in this room and Karkat almost lands flat on his face walking in. He doesn’t even get all pissed off and yell this time though, just picks himself up and goes to stand in a corner by the old rusted fridge. You almost start to feel bad when he steps on another horn and starts cursing all upset and angry under his breath. 

You’re distracted when John opens the old cupboard and the weird Halloween skeleton ghost hybrid abomination you hid in there falls in his face. You laugh when John jumps back like ten feet, already having his camera up and Karkat screams despite being all the way across the room. 

You _stop_ laughing when Karkat’s scream turns suspiciously like a whimper and John turns at you, looking genuinely irritated. 

“Come on you guys, I can’t get anything done with you two messing around! I’m gonna go get some _real_ ghost hunting done. You can join me when you decide to take this seriously,” he snaps before turning and stomping out of the old kitchen. You consider following after him to make sure he’s not genuinely pissed at you, but Karkat’s still making sounds that are suspiciously like muffled crying and you’re starting to feel like a dick for that too. Leaving him alone would probably be a pretty bad idea right now. 

“Uh, you okay dude? Like, you know this place isn’t really haunted right? John’s just being his usual dorky self,” you say, no idea how to broach crying people. You are not good at dealing with this kind of stuff why did John leave you alone with this? 

“I’m fine, fuck off,” Karkat grumbles at you, his voice wavering enough to tell you he is definitely not fine. 

“Nope, no can do. John’s banished me from helping with ghost hunting so you’re stuck with me,” you say, leaning back against the old counter. Karkat’s still not looking at you and you can’t tell if he’s still crying or not. “You’re not seriously scared, are you?” you ask, Karkat scoffing at the question. 

“Holy shit, what was your first clue?” he says and okay you feel like an asshole now. You didn’t mean to genuinely freak him out. Really your main objective had been to tease John a little, that's all. 

“Dude ghosts aren’t real, I came here beforehand and set up most of this junk to mess around with John,” you admit, not sure if he’s figured it out or not still. If he hasn’t it’ll make him even more pissed at you but that’s better than being scared in your opinion.

“Yeah I figured, that doesn’t mean ghosts still can’t be involved,” he mumbles, and you didn’t expect him to believe in this kind of stuff. You guess he’s been pretty clear on that, but you thought it was just an act. 

“Why do you think there’s still gonna be ghosts? I mean rumors and John aren’t the best things to go by,” you ask, because this isn’t like him. He doesn’t answer you at first and you aren’t sure what to do because you don’t do well with long silences. Right when you're about to break the silence he starts speaking. 

“I don’t know. It’s stupid but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one before,” he says and huh, you weren’t expecting that. He still looks all nervous and like he’s expecting you to make fun of him. You were pretty tempted to start making a joke about it. You manage to keep from doing that though, instead reaching out and patting his shoulder. Karkat looks confused and suspicious and you feel awkward as fuck because you don’t _do_ comforting but it looks like you’re trying despite that. 

“Look, no ghosts are gonna fuck with you man, it’s cool,” you say. Karkat stares at you for a moment, and right when you think he’s about to speak there’s a loud crashing sound and the two of you jump away from each other. You hadn’t even realized you still had a hand on his shoulder. 

“I did it!” you hear John’s voice shouting over the sound of another crash. Before either of you can go out to see what the fuck he’s doing he comes barreling back into the kitchen. “A ghost has made contact!” he yells, and all you can see in the low light from your flashlights is scratches and cobwebs all the fuck over him. 

Without thinking the three of you fucking book it out of the house, running out the still knocked down back door and collapsing in the overgrown back yard. 

“I. Hate. All of you,” Karkat announces between panting breaths and you can’t blame him too much for that. You ignore him to go turn to John who’s still grinning like an idiot. 

“Dude, what the fuck did you _do?”_ you ask, because you are so goddamn lost right now. 

“I got attacked by a ghost! It was all grey and had these huge black eyes and tiny little creepy hands! I think I managed to get a picture, here,” John explains, handing you his phone. You begin to flip through the most recent pictures, most of them of empty rooms. Then you get to several that are even darker than the others and blurry as fuck. There’s one where you can get a somewhat decent look at the ‘ghost’ and it takes several long moments of staring before it hits you. 

“John. That is a fucking raccoon. You got attacked by a raccoon,” you say, handing the phone back to him. John frowns and examines the picture again. 

“You think so? It really looked like a ghost up close,” he says. You sigh and rest your head in your hands, and Karkat seems to come out of his fear enough to snatch the phone from John. He barely looks at the photo though, instead seeming to focus on John’s leg. 

“There’s a bite mark on you,” he says simply. Before either of you can say anything Karkat’s pulling out his own phone and starting to dial some number. 

“Uh, Karkat? What are you doing?” John asks. 

“Calling your dad to pick us up and take you to the fucking hospital so you can get rabies shots,” Karkat explains. John’s smile quickly vanishes, but he doesn’t argue. You reach over and brush a few of the cobwebs off of him before patting his shoulder. 

“Happy birthday John.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a super fun request from [floralmarsupial](http://floralmarsupial.tumblr.com/) based off of [this](http://floralmarsupial.tumblr.com/post/151899681521/highschool-au-is-my-fave-homestuck-au-cause-it) post of theirs. I hope you enjoy it!!!


End file.
